Common Core State Standards represent a new blueprint for student learning in English Language Arts and math in the U.S. They present an unprecedented opportunity to elevate the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning. American students, according to respected studies, are still significantly behind students from other nations.

Recognizing the need for maintaining a competitive workforce and a learned society of productive citizens, the nation's governors and leading CEOs began a push for standards reform in the 1990s.Various standards began to evolve, from the Goals 2000 project to No Child Left Behind in 2001, to mention just a few. The movement culminated in 2009, when led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, a group assembled to create voluntary new standards for states in math and ELA. Their aim was to create a new approach, where learning was relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills young people need to be successful in careers and college. Within a year, 46 states adopted the Common Core Standards. This was a grass roots movement, not a federal mandate from Washington as some people would have us believe.

So what is Common Core? It represents standards that have much higher expectations on learning than in the past, that seek to cultivate the deeper learning by encouraging critical thinking, analysis, inquiry and problem solving – not simply memorizing data and facts. We no longer live in an assembly style society where people engage in repetitive non-critical thinking activities as the core of their work life. The world today requires creativity, innovation and critical thinking, all skills at the heart of Common Core.

A common misperception is that Common Core is a curriculum. It is not. It promulgates standards, the “end goals” for student achievement and capability. They represent a set of skills and capacities students need to be competitive in the workplace and in society. Local school districts will retain full control of the curriculum, while working toward a common goal (end game) of creating critical thinking, analytically competent students.

To accomplish such, the ecosystem of learning needs to evolve. Teachers will have to abandon the antiquated approach of uni-direction narration followed by multiple choice testing. Integrated lesson plans will need to be designed that allow for real inquiry, exchange and thought. Teachers will become more facilitators of information and thinking rather than the “keeper of all knowledge.” Their focus will be deeper on fewer concepts in each grade, emphasizing conceptual understanding and its practical application to the real world. Concepts of rigor and coherence will be required.

Common Core provides for real parental engagement. The saying that “It Takes a Village” resonates well as a descriptor. Parents will have the opportunity to engage in the child's learning like never before, and not be fearful of each day's lesson being new and different. The deeper dive into content will allow for greater discourse and family interaction, especially around real world intersections.

And maybe best of all, Common Core lays a framework for real interaction between the formal and informal learning communities to create a true ecosystem of community engagement and learning. Entities like Discovery Science Center, 4H, Girls Inc. and after school programs like THINK Together and Tiger Woods Learning Center become a much more relevant and critical piece of the student's learning experiences. And businesses, the ultimate beneficiary of Common Core, are provided the opportunity to engage and mentor student learning through real life experiences.

Common Core, like anything disruptive, can be frightening. But it is that disruption, which I like to call innovation, which is the fuel of the engine that has made this country great. It may not be the panacea, but it is clearly the vehicle by which we as a community, and a society, can bestow upon our children the capabilities to learn, think and succeed, and to obtain a value-based moral compass.

Gerald Solomon is the executive director of the Samueli Foundation.

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